Summary
Altogether, the current findings suggest that remote evaluations can reduce the costs of research participation for patients, while providing a reasonable evaluation of disability trajectory longitudinally. This could inform the design of remote research that is more inclusive of diverse participants.
Original Article
Remote Observational Research for Multiple Sclerosis. A Natural Experiment.
Neurology: Neuroimmunology & Neuroinflammation
Riley Bove, Shane Poole, Richard Cuneo, Sasha Gupta, Joseph Sabatino, Meagan Harms, Tifffany Cooper, William Rowles, Nicolette Miller, Refujia Gomez, Robin Lincoln, Kira McPolin, Kyra Powers, Adam Santaniello, Adam Renschen, Carolyn J. Bevan, Jeffrey M. Gelfand, Douglas S. Goodin, Chu-Yueh Guo, Andrew R. Romeo, Stephen L. Hauser, Bruce Anthony Campbell Cree; on behalf of the UCSF MS-EPIC Team
Abstract
Background and Objectives Prospective, deeply phenotyped research cohorts monitoring individuals with chronic neurologic conditions, such as multiple sclerosis (MS), depend on continued participant engagement. The COVID-19 pandemic restricted in-clinic research activities, threatening this longitudinal engagement, but also forced adoption of televideo-enabled care. This offered a natural experiment in which to analyze key dimensions of remote research: (1) comparison of remote vs in-clinic visit costs from multiple perspectives and (2) comparison of the remote with in-clinic measures in cross-sectional and longitudinal disability evaluations.
Methods Between March 2020 and December 2021, 207 MS cohort participants underwent hybrid in-clinic and virtual research visits; 96 contributed 100 “matched visits,” that is, in-clinic (Neurostatus-Expanded Disability Status Scale [NS-EDSS]) and remote (televideo-enabled EDSS [tele-EDSS]; electronic patient-reported EDSS [ePR-EDSS]) evaluations. Clinical, demographic, and socioeconomic characteristics of participants were collected.
Results The costs of remote visits were lower than in-clinic visits for research investigators (facilities, personnel, parking, participant compensation) but also for participants (travel, caregiver time) and carbon footprint (p < 0.05 for each). Median cohort EDSS was similar between the 3 modalities (NS-EDSS: 2, tele-EDSS: 1.5, ePR-EDSS: 2, range 0.6.5); the remote evaluations were each noninferior to the NS-EDSS within ±0.5 EDSS point (TOST for noninferiority, p < 0.01 for each). Furthermore, year to year, the % of participants with worsening/stable/improved EDSS scores was similar, whether each annual evaluation used NS-EDSS or whether it switched from NS-EDSS to tele-EDSS.
Discussion Altogether, the current findings suggest that remote evaluations can reduce the costs of research participation for patients, while providing a reasonable evaluation of disability trajectory longitudinally. This could inform the design of remote research that is more inclusive of diverse participants.
Copyright © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. on behalf of the American Academy of Neurology.
